Many commercial establishments employ video systems that record activities at various locations within the premises of the establishment for the purpose of surveillance. One of the important locations to watch is the place where money transactions occur, that is, the Point-Of-Sale (POS) locations. Although a video recording at POS is essential piece of security equipment, it is not sufficient, because a video system can capture only what is happening at the location but cannot decipher why it is happening. To understand the complete situation, it is also necessary to record all the buying and selling details occurring at the location, such as the details or data entered in billing-machines or cash registers.
Typically, an establishment's employee, or cashier, enters identification and quantity of a product to be purchased into the cash register that then sends the “sale” transaction, e.g., Product Name, Quantity and Price, to a printer for printing the bill or sales receipt. By capturing this sale transaction and comparing it with the video recording, it is possible to get comprehensive details of what is happening at the POS location. Because all of the transactions that happen at the POS location are sent from the cash register to the printer, a transaction-capturing device can be placed between the cash register and the printer to capture these transactions. The device then formats the captured data and sends it to the video system that records the video along with the transactions, so that any transaction that needs to be verified for its validity can be checked with the corresponding video.
The need for this verification often happens, for example, with transactions termed ‘Void’ transactions. A void transaction is one that has been cancelled by the cashier for a variety of reasons, such as the product is damaged or defective. In a void transaction, no money is taken from a purchaser, but the product's tag is disabled. It is therefore possible for the employee or cashier at the POS to record a void transaction and give away the product to the customer, who can take it without raising any alarms. However, if a video with the transactions were saved, it would be possible to detect such frauds on comparing both.
For saving or storage purposes, the video system requires only the specific transaction information and does not require redundant data like printer commands, bill header information, etc. Such redundant data, as well as other junk characters, make finding the transactions that need to be verified difficult and cumbersome, since a large amount of data would have to be examined. The redundant information will also increase the storage space. Accordingly, the transaction-capturing device will be programmed to eliminate this data before transmitting transaction information to the video system. However, since each cash register may generate a different format for its output, the same firmware cannot be used at all locations. The firmware will need to be programmed to accommodate the cash register and location specific details.
Among the problems of the aforementioned systems is the necessity for the firmware to directly interface with the cash register, so that distinct firmware is needed for each type of cash register. Hence, a new cash register will require the development of new firmware, because if the programmed firmware does not match the cash register for which it was designed, the transaction data will be difficult to decipher. Further, if the commercial establishment changes the cash register it uses, the transaction capturing device has to be re-programmed with the firmware that supports the new cash-register. Thus, the problem of maintaining a large database of firmware and deploying the right one for a cash register occurs.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,847,393, Ashe et al., for Method and System for Monitoring Point of Sale Exceptions, discloses analyzing event transactional data for certain patterns or occurrences. The system defines events that enable the identification of abnormal repetitions or patterns of certain activities that are indicative of fraud, theft or inadequate training that warrant investigation. Instead of a separate transaction-capturing device, a software machine collects both transactional data and video signals, and processes the information to raise exceptions. Ashe et al. do not remove redundant data; instead they process all data in hopes of identifying pre-defined events and detecting fraudulent information.